Pride & Popularity (26 page)

Well, one thing was for sure—Dad’s answer really helped Mom warm up to the idea of me going to Seattle, because she said suddenly, “Okay, I’ll let Claire go.”

“That’s wonderful!” Darlene gushed.

“Really?” I nearly fell off my chair. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. But . . .”

I knew I wouldn’t get off that easy.
“But?”

“I know this may seem rude, but I would feel much better if Cassidy came, too.”

Okay, yeah, that is rude. You can’t just bring your kids along to hang out with other people when they haven’t been invited. What is she thinking?
I was about to die of embarrassment until I heard—

“Yes, great. I have no problem taking Cassidy too, especially if it means we get to have Claire with us.” Darlene was much nicer about it than I expected her to be.

“Thank you! Thank you!” I couldn’t help myself—I rushed over and gave Darlene a huge hug. “You’re the best!” “Hey, what are we, chopped liver?” my dad grumbled goodnaturedly.

“You know I love you. Thank you.” I hugged my parents. “Can I tell Cass, please? I can’t wait to see her face.”

“Sure, sure.” My dad shooed me away. “We need to work out a few minor things with Darlene anyway.”

That meant they needed to talk about how much it would cost. I wanted to be long gone when that conversation happened—no reason to feel guilty. “Okay!” I hollered as I skidded down the hall toward Cassidy’s room and banged on the door. “Hey, I’ve got some news. Hurry up.”

I could hear my parents and Mrs. Halloway chuckling behind me as Cass opened the door. “What’s up?”

“Oh my gosh! You’re never going to believe where we’re going,” I exclaimed as I pushed my older sister into her room and shut the door with my foot.

Cassidy laughed and swatted my hands away. “What do you mean? Are they planning a vacation or something?”

“Something like that.”

Cass put her hands on her hips. “Okay, spill.”

It came out in one big gush. “Oh my gosh! You know Darlene? Well, she came here to invite me to go to Seattle with her. Can you believe it? I’m totally dying here. Mom got overprotective and demanded that you come too—which I was seriously mortified about—but it doesn’t matter because Darlene said yes! You get to come too, to Washington, for the whole summer! How cool is that?”

After my monologue, I was so busy catching my breath that it took me a moment to realize Cassidy wasn’t jumping around the room like I thought she’d be. In fact, she looked downright upset about it.

“Hey, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Do I have to go?” That was the last thing I expected to hear come from her lips.

“Are you kidding?
You mean, ‘Do I really get to go,’ right?”

“No.” Cassidy shook her head. “Do I have to go? Like, will Mom let you go without me?”

“There is something seriously wrong with my ears. I know you’re not sounding disturbed by this amazing news. I know it.”
Sheesh. What is this world coming to?
“And yes, to answer your question, I think Mom would totally freak out if you didn’t come too. It was hard enough for her to let me go as it is.”
No thanks to your antics with Blake.

“Can you keep a secret?” Cassidy asked quietly.

No. I’m the worst at keeping secrets. Everyone knows that.
“Um, sure. What is it?”

She frowned and looked nervously around the cluttered room as though she was checking to see if we were alone. With a gulp, she leaned forward and whispered, “Promise me you won’t tell anyone, okay? Promise?”

Only people I can absolutely trust.
“Promise.”

Cass’s eyes were huge. “I’m seeing someone.”

Huh?
“That’s your secret? You’re seeing someone?”

She looked perturbed. “Well, yeah. That’s a big secret!”

“That you’re seeing someone?” I snorted and plopped on her bed. “You’re talking about Ethan, right?”

Cassidy’s jaw dropped. “How in the—? Where did you—?”

“Chloe told me like a year ago.”

“No way.”

“Yeah. She told a lot of people. That’s way old news.”

“What? Did she tell Mom and Dad?”

“Um . . . no.” I threw a crumpled T-shirt at her. “Chloe’s not stupid. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they already know anyway.”

“Are you kidding me?” Cassidy threw herself on the bed next to me, obviously dejected. “Mom and Dad would have total seizures, and you know it.”

She’s probably right.
“Come on, they’re not that bad.”

“Not that bad?” Cassidy flipped around and faced me. “Not that bad? You of all people should know what it’s been like living through their ‘grounding for life’ episode.” She fell back on the bed again. “Never mind that Ethan is only one of the nicest guys ever. And so different from Blake Winter, it’s a joke. Mom and Dad don’t trust me to make my own judgments when it comes to guys. I’m eighteen. Really, you’d think they’d lighten up!”

“Cass, it looks like they are,” I pointed out. “If this vacation is anything to go by, they trust you a lot.”

“Yeah, some trust—banning me from the one guy I have ever really loved for a whole summer.”

“A guy they technically don’t know exists.”
Good grief. Maybe I don’t want Cassidy to go if she’s going to be a major mess.
“Think of it this way, Cass. If you manage to bring me back in one piece and prove to them that you’re responsible, you could probably very easily include Ethan in the picture once you got home.”

Cassidy sat up. The imaginary light bulb above her head flickered and then lit up. “I think you’re right.” She jumped off the bed and walked over to her window. “So, if I go for like a few weeks this summer, by the time I get back everything will be a whole lot better. I mean, they have to trust me, right?” She spun around with a huge smile on her face. “It’s brilliant! Like totally mad-scientist perfect. If Mom and Dad trust me enough to babysit you all the way in Washington, then they’ll have to trust me with everything else. Hee hee hee!”

Now she was dancing around the room.

“Come on!” She giggled. “We’ve only got what, three weeks until summer break? We’ve got to figure out what to pack!”

Needless to say, I left my older sister much happier than when I’d gone into her room thirty minutes earlier. We planned everything, down to our party clothes, just in case we were lucky enough to go out somewhere. All in all, I was pretty pleased with the idea of going with Cass. She was a lot of fun if you knew her. Some people only saw her quiet side—the person she’d been ever since the Blake incident—but for a few minutes there, I got a glimpse of the old Cass, the Cass that probably only Ethan saw these days.

I softly closed my door and took a minute to just look around my bedroom. I’d turned sixteen earlier in the year, and I was now almost sixteen and a half. It was the perfect age—in the pre-Blake days—because it would have been the time when I could go on my first date. But because of Blake, Dad had threatened to make us wait until we were thirty. Okay, to be fair, I’m sure he would’ve relented and let me go on a date now if a guy actually asked me.

Yep. That was my sorry state of life. Sixteen, never been on a date, never been kissed, never held hands with a guy, never— well, never
anything.
Totally pathetic, right? I blame it mostly on my randomly weird parents—and the fact that after Chloe and Cassidy were born, there wasn’t much magic left in the beauty wand for me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m pretty enough—just not knockout
gorgeous
pretty. Take my sisters, for instance. Chloe is a stunning redhead with long, perfectly placed ringlets, who’s practically engaged to the hottest guy in Farmington, New Mexico. And Cassidy has the same exact ringlets, just with bright blonde hair and a reputation for being either a massive wild-child flirt—thanks to Blake—or a soft-spoken mouse— again, thanks to Blake.

Anyway, how can you compete against a blonde and a redhead? Especially when I’m not sure what color my completely straight hair is. Sometimes people tell me it looks dirty blonde, and sometimes I’ve been told it looks brownish.

Fine.
So there you have it. Me, Claire, the baby in a family of three girls whose total existence has revolved around the actions—and their consequences—of her older sisters.

With a sigh, I walked around my room almost as though I was seeing it for the first time. The feeling was pretty surreal, as if it knew I was about to leave and have an amazing adventure.
Washington!
Just thinking about it made me giggle again. I ran over to my desk, plunked down in the seat, and pulled down the book above me before my brain had even processed what I was doing.

Twilight
was the most perfect book in the whole world, and subsequently, my favorite in the series. Carefully, I opened up the well-used paperback and allowed the pages to float down in a happy fan. I could feel the gentle breeze the papers made against my arm before they nestled down again. Almost by instinct, I thumbed through a couple of worn pages and found my favorite passage. It was, hands down, the most romantic paragraph ever written. I sighed as I read the words of Edward Cullen when he tells Bella that she is the most important thing to him now, and how the thought of hurting her has tortured him.

Then I quickly flipped a couple of pages until I came to the most poignant of all things ever said by Edward. I vividly remembered shaking when I first read his description of his desperate battle within himself to not kill Bella. All he wanted was to get her alone, but the thought of what killing her would do to his family kept him from it. Little did I know until that moment how much danger she’d been in! Edward wanted to kill her and had thought of ways to do it.

Bella Swan. The most amazing heroine ever written. I mean, what other female character had been so easily relatable, or so perfectly complex and lifelike? There couldn’t be another heroine more wonderful than Bella—I was sure of it.

So there it was. My deep, dark secret, the reason behind my fascination with Washington. I was in love with Edward Cullen. And Edward lived in Washington. Plain and simple. According to Stephenie Meyer, Washington has the most rainfall of any state. And as everyone knows, vampires have to live in cloudy places.

Since the Twilight series, I had become rather addicted to and obsessed with all things pertaining to the world of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. There was so much to learn. The funny thing was, every time I read one of the books, I found something new—something I’d missed before.

And then it hit me.

I’m really, really, really going.

Honestly, can life get any better than this?

“Stephenie Meyer meets Jane Austen in this humorous, romantic tale of a girl on a mission to find her very own Edward Cullen. I didn’t want it to end!”

“
Northanger Alibi
reminds us in comical, relatable ways that mythical creatures aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be, and that real boys can be even better.”

“
Northanger Alibi
will have you laughing out loud at Claire’s observations and dramatic responses. In a world where every teen girl is looking for her ‘Edward’ . . . , Claire’s coming-of-age story is both timely and refreshing.”

“Absolutely wonderful and addictive.”

“I fell in love with Claire and Tony the same way I fell in love with Edward and Bella in
Twilight. Northanger Alibi
has all the ingredients of a great love story.”

“
Northanger Alibi
is fun, exciting, and suspenseful. . . . James has hit the nail on the head with this one!”

“
Northanger Alibi
was a breath of fresh air. . . . The book, above all, has such a captivating love triangle, I couldn’t put it down.”